Everyone has the potential to be an effective public speaker. There is no magic formula for success, in fact, the beauty of public speaking is that everyone is unique and has different strengths. All we have to do is prepare, cultivate our best habits, avoid pitfalls, and let nature takes its course. The following ten tips are designed to help you do just that.

1.  Commit to the Topic
Your enthusiasm is contagious.  If you think your topic is genuinely interesting, others will.  Even if not everything about it sings to you, focus on the aspects that intrigue you most.  If nothing about the topic grabs you, don't speak about it.

2.  It's not About You
Many people feel self-conscious about speaking--nervous about what others will think, afraid of failing.  If you have followed the first tip, you need only remind yourself that this speech is about the topic itself, not about you, or your abilities.  The more you think about the topic and the less you think about yourself, the better things will go.

3.  Be Prepared
Few people speak effectively without some kind of preparation, whether that involves research, or just thinking, organizing, and practicing your delivery to a friend.  The quickest way to bring on a sense of panic is to stand before a group without preparing anything to say.  Conversely, the better prepared you are, the more you will relax.  Yet being prepared is not merely a function of time spent.  It involves focusing on what you want to say.

4.  Focus
Greek and Roman orators knew that listeners would remember one point well made.  You can imitate this sense of focus by putting your main idea in once sentence and trying it out on someone.  If the response is a puzzled look, you will know to clarify, or find a good example that captures the imagination of a listener.  Once you know your focus, try to organize your speech organically, so that one idea grows from another, always in relationship to this focus.

5.  Find the perfect example
The best ideas come alive with a good example, often from personal experience, with vivid details that allow the audience to envision each moment  as it is shared.  A good speech might have only one such example, but it will stick with the audience.

6.  Minimize notes
Many people write out or memorize a speech, or they make a long list of notes that they methodically plow through. These approaches undercut your natural ability to communicate, because they take you out of the moment and turn you from a speaker into a reader.

7.  Be Present at Your Own Speech
Once you minimize notes to a few points, a quote, a key word--whatever you need--you will free your mind to actually think about what you are saying as you say it.  This ability to be "present" minimizes self-consciousness by keeping the focus on your message rather than you.  It also helps you think on your feet and reach you audience. 

8.  Connect With Your Audience
A speech is a dialogue in which you do all the talking.  This does not mean that you monopolize the conversation, but that you "partners in conversation" "speak" in body language--smiles, nodding heads, fidgeting, confused looks--rather than words.  The silent dialogue is essential to effective speaking, because it allows you to adjust to what the audience needs--more formality, less formality, a better example, a clarification, etc.  Novices are usually "deaf" to this silent conversation, unable to pry their eyes from their notes, darting only the quickest of glances toward the audience.  Experienced speakers make significant eye contact with specific listeners throughout a room.

9.  Learn From the Questions
If your speech is followed by a question period, and you have a chance to view it later on video, observe the differences between your presentation during your speech and you manner during the question period.  Notice how you naturally interact with questioners, the spontaneous and appropriate energy in your voice and gestures, the sense of responding to someone, the ability to be specific and focused.  the interchanges during the questioning can five you clues about your own greatest strengths as a speaker, and you can incorporate them in your next speech.

10.  Don't Expect Perfection
Public speaking is a craft which is never perfected but improves with time. The best way to learn it is to do it and to pay attention to what works and what doesn't.  Without being blind to your inevitable mistakes, focus on what clicks and build on that.  Following the first four tips will increase the likelihood that even your first efforts will be surprisingly successful.

These tips are not meant to be an exhaustive guide to public speaking, but rather helpful advice for a novice.  Perhaps the most important thing to remember is that we are all public speakers from a young age, and the rewards for cultivating this necessary aspect of life go far beyond the classroom to help us shape the very fabric of our lives among others.


Reference: Dr. Sharon Schumann, University of Oregon